16.4 Exploration and Settlement in the Context of Global Climate Patterns
267
Lamb makes the point, however, that these Norse medieval explorations and
colonizations were but the latest in a series of explorations and colonizations
belonging to warm periods, with the discovered lands often forgotten or only
dimly remembered in intervening cold periods. In their newly discovered lands the
medieval Norse colonists found earlier settlers, who had settled there in an earlier
warm epoch which had also favoured exploration and colonization. Lamb tells of
one such early group of migrants who had discovered and established colonies in
both Greenland and Iceland 400 years earlier than the medieval Norse colonists.
They claimed to have been sent by King Arthur in AD 531 to seek and settle lands
to the north of Scotland. From the point of view of climate, AD 531 was not a good
time for exploring and settling in the North Atlantic. Perhaps this is borne out by
the oral record that five of their ships were destroyed and half of the 2,000 colonists
(which included 400 women) drowned on the way. Surprisingly, these much earlier
colonists recounted that they had also met inhabitants already established in Iceland
who “warned of dangerous seas and currents farther north”. Lamb adds, “If there
is any substance to these reports, this earlier population in Iceland must have died
out between that time and 790–860; the epoch is thought to have included a marked
cold period. A party of Greenlanders, however, who reached Norway in the deteriorating conditions of the late fourteenth century, in AD 1364, knew of the legend and
claimed to be descended from these first immigrants” (p. 252).
King Arthur is often regarded as a figure of myth rather than an historical figure.
Often Maui the Navigator in Polynesian oral traditions is similarly dismissed and
confused with the mythical demi-god whose name was conferred on him. This is
hardly surprising. When long cold periods inimical to ocean voyaging isolate distant
colonies, and earlier explorers and colonists are a distant memory in their original
homeland, a story told round a fire at night, the lands they discovered are effectively
lost, waiting to be rediscovered when a warm period conducive to ocean voyaging
occurs again. In some cases the wait might be as long as a thousand years. The
scenario is as probable for New Zealand and Easter Island as it is for Greenland and
Iceland and Vinland. Each set of colonists will preserve in their own oral traditions
memories of their voyage to the new land, memories of the navigator and captain
of their ship or canoe and a record of their descent from those aboard. Memories
of their former homeland will fade as it becomes less relevant to their new isolated
lives. And those in the former homeland will even more quickly forget the people
who left long ago and never returned and so have no place and relevance in their
world.
Viewing Maui’s explorations of the Pacific, carrying him south to New Zealand
and as far north as Hawaii, in this light, provides a context for his discovery of the
North Island of New Zealand, replete with its inhabitants, and also for his fishing up
of the island of Maui in the Hawaiian Group. In terms of our paradigm, Maui was a
second-wave explorer who followed two of the four powerful warm currents flowing out of the West Pacific Warm Pool. Clearly Maui inherited sailing instructions
for reaching the South Island by following the East Australian Current south till it
turned in response to the landmass of New Zealand and took him to a landing on the
west coast of the South Island. It seems probable that knowledge of the long-ago
267
Lamb makes the point, however, that these Norse medieval explorations and
colonizations were but the latest in a series of explorations and colonizations
belonging to warm periods, with the discovered lands often forgotten or only
dimly remembered in intervening cold periods. In their newly discovered lands the
medieval Norse colonists found earlier settlers, who had settled there in an earlier
warm epoch which had also favoured exploration and colonization. Lamb tells of
one such early group of migrants who had discovered and established colonies in
both Greenland and Iceland 400 years earlier than the medieval Norse colonists.
They claimed to have been sent by King Arthur in AD 531 to seek and settle lands
to the north of Scotland. From the point of view of climate, AD 531 was not a good
time for exploring and settling in the North Atlantic. Perhaps this is borne out by
the oral record that five of their ships were destroyed and half of the 2,000 colonists
(which included 400 women) drowned on the way. Surprisingly, these much earlier
colonists recounted that they had also met inhabitants already established in Iceland
who “warned of dangerous seas and currents farther north”. Lamb adds, “If there
is any substance to these reports, this earlier population in Iceland must have died
out between that time and 790–860; the epoch is thought to have included a marked
cold period. A party of Greenlanders, however, who reached Norway in the deteriorating conditions of the late fourteenth century, in AD 1364, knew of the legend and
claimed to be descended from these first immigrants” (p. 252).
King Arthur is often regarded as a figure of myth rather than an historical figure.
Often Maui the Navigator in Polynesian oral traditions is similarly dismissed and
confused with the mythical demi-god whose name was conferred on him. This is
hardly surprising. When long cold periods inimical to ocean voyaging isolate distant
colonies, and earlier explorers and colonists are a distant memory in their original
homeland, a story told round a fire at night, the lands they discovered are effectively
lost, waiting to be rediscovered when a warm period conducive to ocean voyaging
occurs again. In some cases the wait might be as long as a thousand years. The
scenario is as probable for New Zealand and Easter Island as it is for Greenland and
Iceland and Vinland. Each set of colonists will preserve in their own oral traditions
memories of their voyage to the new land, memories of the navigator and captain
of their ship or canoe and a record of their descent from those aboard. Memories
of their former homeland will fade as it becomes less relevant to their new isolated
lives. And those in the former homeland will even more quickly forget the people
who left long ago and never returned and so have no place and relevance in their
world.
Viewing Maui’s explorations of the Pacific, carrying him south to New Zealand
and as far north as Hawaii, in this light, provides a context for his discovery of the
North Island of New Zealand, replete with its inhabitants, and also for his fishing up
of the island of Maui in the Hawaiian Group. In terms of our paradigm, Maui was a
second-wave explorer who followed two of the four powerful warm currents flowing out of the West Pacific Warm Pool. Clearly Maui inherited sailing instructions
for reaching the South Island by following the East Australian Current south till it
turned in response to the landmass of New Zealand and took him to a landing on the
west coast of the South Island. It seems probable that knowledge of the long-ago